Choices
by Aaeri
Summary: Wake up. Eat. Open shop. Serve customers. Close shop. Eat. Sleep. Days fly by as Winry does the same thing over and over again, yet in the back of her mind she is still thinking about those two. And Winry Rockbell, an independent woman who does whatever she pleases, most certainly does not wait for a certain pair of alchemists to come back. Or so she tries to convince herself.


It was just another normal day. A day where she'd just wake up and move on to service her customers. Gears, nails, oil, it was all over the place. It stained her clothes as well, but she didn't care. She was just doing what she loved.

_(it always reminded her of them)_

Every day that door opened to let in the many customers who need her service, yet it still failed her, for it wouldn't let the two people she loved to come through. No, they were gone, off searching for something radical, and they weren't coming back. That's just how it was.

She never gave up hope though. Every time that doorbell rang, she would jump at it, Den following at her heels. A glimmer of hope would arise in her, only to be crushed when it was just another neighbor. She still smiled, though. It was all she could do.

_(because she had wanted them to so desperately stay back with her, or at least take her, but that didn't happen and now she was here wishing that she had gone anyway because it was better than just waiting like this. especially when she could instead be with ed and al and laugh with them and yell at them and pretend to get angry when something went wrong, because that's how it should be)_

When she was fixing automail, she would always remember his. Her mind would flashback to the time where he was sitting there, so forlornly in that horrible wheelchair, a haunted look on his face. When she attached his automail, after it was all over, it was worth it to see his face light up when he sparred with his brother. She would do anything to see that face again. But she hadn't so far, he hadn't even come back for the yearly maintenance like he was supposed to. She didn't even know if he was alive.

_(they had to be because she was waiting for them and they couldn't dare to leave her waiting with no reward)_

When she polished her finished work, her baby, she would remember his brother as well. She wondered how it would be for someone so kindhearted to be stuck in that empty armor, not even able to eat or sleep. He liked it when she polished him, though. She supposed it told him that he was still loved. She wondered how he was holding up, backing up his brother like always. Or maybe he was dead too, that would explain why he hadn't come home yet.

_(they weren't they weren't they weren't THEY WEREN'T)_

_Home._Could that word really apply to those two? After the older one had become one of the military, both of them had burned down their house. They had no home to really go to. No, that was wrong. This was their home. This house which she, Granny and Den lived in, it was their home as well. She knew he would never think it as so, but it would also be so. This house, like her, would always be waiting for the day they returned.

She didn't like to think of it as waiting. She was _Winry Rockbell_, for God's sake, she took matters into her own hands. If she wanted something, she would try her damndest to get it. So the notion of waiting for anyone was ludicrous. Winry didn't wait for anyone.

_(except she did)_

Some days, those rare ones where she was finished with her work, she would walk down to the nearby stream in Risembool. She would kick at the water and watch Den growl at every critter that came his way, and she would smile. It was here that she could best remember the times all three of them would come and play, both of the picking on her, always ending with tears from an accidental push or trip.

_(now she just laughed at the irony of it all)_

And when the day would end, and she would sit at the table with Granny, and stare longingly at those two empty spots, she couldn't help but wonder if they would really never come back. But she would shake her head and take another bite, because she knew, _she knew_ that they would return. That is why she would always wait here for them. That is why she never gave up one them, because she loved both of them and refused to entertain any other notion that may arise.

That was the life of Winry Rockbell.

_(and it's a life that she was glad to spend waiting if they could just come back)_

* * *

A/N Originally posted in 2011. Reposted to new account.


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